Sacrifice of Innocents
by Parallel Monsoon
Summary: An oddity, that Javert should think of the boy now. Tied to a post, bones aching, blood beading at his temple, and still he cannot help but think of the boy's smile. A bold smile, with pride lifting its corners and white joy flashing at its center. Why oh why have they not sent the child away?
1. Chapter 1

(This is a kink meme response. The prompt requested Javert attempting to get Gavroche away from the barricade. For plot reasons I have altered the timeline. Javert is now held at the barricade for longer than in canon and is there when Gavroche makes his attempt to gather ammo on the other side. Inspired mainly by the characterizations of the new movie)

* * *

The boy.

An oddity, that Javert should think of the boy now. Tied to a post, bones aching, blood beading at his temple, and still he cannot help but think of the boy's smile. A bold smile, with pride lifting its corners and white joy flashing at its center.

He'd shown Javert for a traitor, had sentenced him to death with the surly casualness only afforded to youth. But his smile...

A child's smile, just as his eyes were a child's eyes. There had been cruelty in them, but it had been forthright instead of a grown man's cunning. A splendid game! Spies and barricades and guns. There had been no fear in those eyes that shown so bright, and Javert had known then the boy did not understand what would come of the day.

But surely Javert had more important matters to attend to than the fate of a dirty street urchin, here at the end of his life.

Valjean. At the barricade, a place he had no business being, and Javert only wishes he could claim surprise. Indeed it had felt obvious and crass to see the man come riding to the rescue. Of course, of course. Why not?

It was even reassuring in some small way. That fate should be a circle, that it should have a shape so cleanly traced.

If Javert must die, it pleases him that he will die knowing Valjean stands near. It is something, at least, to have come so close.

Outside a song rises. Mingled with the deeper tones is one higher, sweeter. Javert cannot fathom why the rebels have not sent the child away.

Javert flexes his muscles, tests his bonds. He does not hope for escape.

He'd been a boy once. He's heard the jokes, the rumors that he'd sprung forth full formed from Justice's bosom with law book in one hand and cudgel in the other. But Javert remembers, if dimly. He does not think his eyes were ever so bright, his smile ever so wide, but he remembers what it is to hope. To imagine brighter 'morrows, and to think that one might aid in bringing them about.

He'd had the luxury of some little time to grow out of it. Time the boy will not be spared.

Why oh why have they not sent the child away?

It angers Javert, and that anger is a mystery. He is not often angry and when he is, it is a cold anger, a thing of ice and smooth edges that has more to do with trespass against order than any passion of his own. But now...he burns with it, and Javert is a creature better designed for winter storms than this summer blaze. He shies from it, as a wolf will shy from the flame, and turns again to contemplate milder things.

He aches. When will Valjean come to kill him?

It happens not longer after. Javert can see little tied low as he is. But he hears the anguished calls for the boy to return. A song, the boy's voice alone this time, ringing out in defiance.

The thunder.

Javert is not aware that he too cries out.


	2. Chapter 2

They bring the boy near enough for Javert to see if he straightens and cranes his neck. Still alive, by grace, but trembling. The blood is bright at his shoulder and the child...he sobs as children do when they fall, his boldness stripped away.

One of the students, a lad of dark curly hair, cradles the boy close. You'd think them father and son, the way he speaks so kindly to the lad. A little group gathers not far away, Valjean and the student leader among them, speaking in low tones that are not meant to carry to young ears.

But Javert is used to listening at keyholes and windows. He hears that the boy is wounded deeply, that he will die. That he will not live to see the rest of them fall.

Is there no hope? It is Valjean who asks, and Javert is bitter in his gratitude for it.

Little. Too little to keep hold of, for who would they find to treat him? This begger, this child with a bellyful of rebellion? How would they slip him through the net of soldiers that draws ever tighter around them? The boy is much too hurt to survive the careful subterfuge that would be required of any student fleeing the barricade. Better that he should pass on surrounded by the only family he has known.

They do the best they can for him. They tell him he will be fine, back to running and thieving before the day is out. Water, bandages, whisky to dull the pain. The boy's lip trembles.

Javert burns. He twists against his bindings until he gasps, and the struggle brings Valjean to him at last. He looks down at Javert as if he has forgotten him. It should be a terrible thing, for the rabbit to dismiss the hound at his heels. Yet Javert forgives him for it, and that too is a bitter thing.

The burning is in his throat and Javert finds he cannot speak. He settles for lifting his head, for looking Valjean in the eye this one last time.

"Give me the spy," Valjean says without looking away.

"This man belongs to you," he is told, and Javert would laugh at that if only he were able.

Of course, of course. Why not?

They are left alone. He stumbles when Valjean drags him up and pushes him toward the alley at the back of the cafe. His legs have long since gone numb and his pulse pounds at his temples. He has had no water, no rest, for many hours now. Still he finds the strength to push back.

Not in hopes of breaking free. But because now he will not be able to see the boy nor hear what becomes of him.

The struggle is brief enough, Valjean the stronger still by far, but it is vicious. The familiarity of it all should not be as comforting as it is. It serves to temper the strange, high heat in Javert's chest, and by the time Valjean succeeds in forcing him outside he had found his tongue again.

"You've hungered for this," he says, as if he hadn't hungered for its opposite. "Take your revenge."

He scoffs when Valjean pulls out a knife. Uncivilized, a weapon meant for just this, narrow passways cluttered with debris and smelling of sewage.

Valjean draws close. Javert shivers but not in fear. It is a kind of ecstasy, this circle drawing closed. A reward for his faith. He has not beaten Valjean, but it cannot be denied that he has chased him to ground.

His bindings are severed.


	3. Chapter 3

"Clear out of here."

Javert is pushed past Valjean, into the open. Reflex makes him glance down, searching for a wound he feels certain must be there. They say there's little pain at first. It would be a relief to find his gut slit wide, to see the red loops of bowels hanging loose, to feel the warm sluice of blood spilling down his thighs.

He is whole, and Javert does not understand.

He says as much. Valjean only shakes his head. He pulls out a pistol, but he does not hold it like a man who means to use it.

"Clear out of here," he says again.

Understanding comes. Javert nearly sags with the relief of it. "You want a deal." His voice steadies and strengthens as he speaks, as he puzzles it through. "You would trade your life for mine."

He thinks Valjean will find himself disappointed. There are none who would hasten to have him back. What is Javert's life worth? What is any one man's life worth when so many will draw their last breath before the fall of dusk? Replacement would cost less than rescue, and Javert knows the care with which his masters count their coins.

"You're wrong," Valjean says, almost gently. "You have always been wrong. There are no conditions...I do not blame you, Javert. You've only done your duty."  
_  
'Nothing more,'_ goes unspoken, but Javert reads it in Valjean's eyes all the same. The blaze returns, and for once the anger is on Javert's own behalf. This man, this convict, has no right to stand in judgment, to find fault with Javert's dedication to his duty. A man who devotes himself utterly should not be made the subject of pity.

Valjean rattles off an address.

"No doubt our paths will cross again," he says.

And then he does something that no convict, no criminal, has ever dared do before.

He turns. He shows Javert his back and **walks away. **

As if there is not the slightest doubt that Javert will allow him his freedom. As if he knows Javert as well as Javert thought he knew Valjean, and knows he has not the heart to pounce.

Javert burns like the sun, yet he has never been colder.

The circle has broken. Fate has slipped her leash. She runs wild, savage, and Javert would rather be devoured by a dog than a beast.

He takes one step toward the small barricade that blocks the path to freedom. Another. Turns back, for if Valjean can save the life of his enemy than all things are possible.

"Give me the boy," he says to Valjean's back.


	4. Chapter 4

Javert takes thin pleasure in the puzzlement that breaks across the other man's face. Let Javert not be the only one cast adrift.

He thinks he does well in hiding his own surprise. Those were not the words he meant to say.

"The boy?"

"Gavroche." And why has Javert pretended all this time not to know the child's name, if only to himself? "Let me carry him to aid."

"Then take him yourself," he says when Valjean is slow to answer, "Where is your vaulted charity now, while that lad lies bleeding?"

The barb hit homes. Valjean winces and turns away his face. "I cannot. There is another I am pledged to bring home if God allows it."

Javert laughs.

It is terrible to his own ears, but how can he not? Valjean, man of mercy. So very merciful he would allow a little child to die while he busies rescuing another. Javert does not know how the man can stand it, these choices made murky and treacherous. The law offers clarity, but only when it comes to who and how to punish.

There are no rules for this, or at least none that Javert knows. So he makes his own choice in haste. He does not dwell. He acts, and hopes that God will forgive him for it.

He returns to the cafe, and for once it is Valjean who follows at his heels.

There is an outcry when they appear together. A dozen guns turn to point their way, and Javert does not hesitate to put high his hands. His pride has been left behind in the alley, a mangled thing brought low by kindness.

"Hold." They listen when Valjean speaks, though he is a stranger to them. Javert can make men cower and quake, but never has he been able to make them listen as this criminal does. "The Inspector has offered to do something no one else can."

They gather again in a little knot, whispering in terse tones while a chosen few stand guard at Javert's side. He does not try to listen. He can see the boy, and Gavroche...he is pale, those bright eyes closed, his lashes pale upon his sallow cheek.

Time is running short.

It is Courfeyrac who breaks away and approaches Javert.

(Another name he has pretended not to know. But he does know it, knows them all, and how could he not? He has knelt in the midst of them for many an hour, a knotted noose at his throat, and time is slow while a man waits to die. He knows their friendships, their rivalries. Knows the girls they have bedded, the games they have played, the love they hold for their mothers.

He knows who believes in the cause, who drinks in the night and watches another man with wistful eyes. He has watched them turn their faces to the sun, has watched them savor wine made sweeter for the knowledge it will be the last they taste.

And though they are fools one and all, it strikes Javert that he is no longer sure they deserve to die for it. One revelation piled atop another, and even his shoulders must soon buckle beneath such crushing weight. He is so weary, so very weary of it all.)

"Why?" Courfeyrac asks, and Gavroche's blood is a merry stain across his shirt.

Javert falters.

How can he explain what it is he saw in the boy's smile? Would they believe if he said he knew how it was, to be young and alone, how it made one prone to fly to the side of anyone who showed the least kindness? That a child may look wise but is still after all only a child, and to forget it is to do that child a most grievous harm?

"War is a man's game," he says instead to the dead man before him, "You lot have chosen your fate. But the boy...it is my duty as an officer to rescue a victim of kidnapping."

More muttering. The leader, Enjolras, shakes his head again and again. It is suggested that one of the students be given the boy to spirit away, but that plan fares no better than the last time it was brought to table. None will help a rebel...but who would dare turn away Javert?

"I can hardly do him harm," Javert reminds them.

Again Enjolras shakes his head. Javert wishes for his gun.

Courteyrac has not rejoined his comrades. Like Javert he does not listen closely, his eyes focused only on a narrow chest that lifts and falls with the most uneasy life. Quite suddenly he drops down beside Gavroche. Gathers him up, blankets and all, and stands with him cradled like a babe in arms.

He kisses the boy's forehead, and Javert looks away. He feels he has witnessed something holy, something not meant for his wolf's eyes.

"Take him," Courteyrac says, and makes Javert an offering of boney limbs and wild hair.

The boy weighs nothing. A wisp, and Javert despairs.

None protest. They have fallen silent, and when Javert steps forward they part before him. Enjolras stretches out a hand as they pass, resting it briefly on Gavroche's shoulder before he too turns aside.

Valjean walks with Javert into the alley and goes to work dismantling the blockade. He looks to Javert when it is done, and there is an apology in his eyes. That he should leave this to another, that he should not be so noble as he strives to pretend.

Javert looks upon a face as familiar as his own. Just a man after all. No better than any other, but scarcely any worse.

"We will meet again soon," Javert tells him.

It is not a threat. Not a promise. The time for that is done. It is only the way of things, and Javert knows Valjean must be as weary as he. As ready to rest. They have grown old together, and the time is long past for their story to have its ending.

"Yes," Valjean says.

Javert hefts Gavroche higher and walks on.


	5. Chapter 5

It is not so very difficult.

There is a hairy moment when Javert rounds a corner and startles a soldier into lifting his gun. Javert does not flinch, ignores utterly the threat, and this more than the badge in his hand serves to convince the man Javert is what he claims.

Javert fumbles his way through explaining how the boy came by a bullet in his shoulder. He is not inexperienced with falsehoods, but it is a different thing to lie bold-faced to a decent man instead of a scoundrel. It vexes.

A carriage is summoned in short order. Javert sits across from a junior officer from his own station. Here his reputation serves him well, and though the man looks agog at Gavroche's limp form he does not give voice to the obvious questions. Javert's young colleague will have a story to tell at the pub that night, and Javert thinks he will be accused of being in his cups before his first pint.

The hospital is overfull. Decorated officers sip tea and suffer their foreheads blotted by cooing nurses while lesser soldiers writhe in lonely corners. The stronger give voice to that last prayer so common on the lips of dying men.

'Mum...please, my mummy...'

Would Gavroche wish now for his own mother's touch? Javert wagers not. Some boys have mums, others only mothers. As for Javert himself...whoreson, and that's all there is to it.

Still, the thought sparks something strange and fierce in his breast. When it comes time to lay the boy down, to turn him over to those who know him not, Javert finds he hesitates.

"Take care," he tells the nurse.

She spares a patient smile. "Of course, Monsieur."

Javert watches to be sure, and is satisfied by the tender touch of her hands.

The doctor is an older man. Pockmarked skin, a weak chin, but there is confidence in the way he counts the shuddering breaths, the faltering beats of a young heart.

He does not look hopeful. Gavroche is thinner and smaller than he ought to be. Worn down, and there are scars at his back that make Javert stifle a growl.

"We'll try," the doctor says when the exam is done, and Javert knows the boy has already passed from the man's attention.

Javert flashes a banknote. "There is more," he assures. His salary is small, but then Javert buys little. What else has he to spend his savings upon? "Much more."

The doctor smiles.

"We will do all that we can, good Inspector," he says.

"See that you do." Javert has lied this day, and not in service to his country. He has bribed. "I'll know if you don't, and I'll take it from your hide."

And now he threatens a learned man for no better reason than his own desires. Javert sees too easily now how sin begets sin.

He holds the other man's eyes until the doctor blanches and steps back. He mumbles vague promises before scurrying off to prepare, taking the nurse with him.  
Javert is left alone with the boy.

He has knelt beside corpses with more color to their cheeks than Gavroche now possess. There is blood frothing at his lips.

Javert looks about to be sure none in the busy hall are watching before wiping away the slick of gore with his sleeve. He holds his breath as he does, his hands clumsy and ill-suited for the task.

Gavroche moans and turns toward the touch.

Javert rears back in alarm. He knocks against a spindly chair, sending it toppling with a clatter.

Gavroche opens his eyes. For a long moment they stare at each other. At first Gavroche looks merely confused, like a lad roused too quickly from a summer's nap in the shade.

Then recognition comes, and with it the panic of an animal caged.

The boy's attempt to flee is a weak twitch at best. Still it pulls a strained groan from Gavroche's throat, and some ridiculous, ill-considered impulse makes Javert reach out. He drops his hand quickly when the boy flinches from it, showing red-smeared teeth like he means to bite.

It is a smile of a different sort, and it gives Javert hope. Perhaps it means there's fight enough left in the child to see him through.


	6. Chapter 6

The commotion brings the doctor with pleasing haste. Gavroche's eyes are fluttering closed, but still Javert retreats until he is sure the boy can no longer see him. "He needs immediate surgery," the doctor says, and with that little ceremony Gavroche is whisked away.

The nurse lingers. "He is in good hands, Monsieur." She's a young thing and plain, but there is a stubbornness to the set of her jaw that Javert finds reassuring. "Do not be afraid."

She looks very much like she means to pat his shoulder.

Javert scowls. It is well-practiced, that scowl, and more than one hardened criminal has wet himself at the sight of it.

The nurse only smiles again. There's sympathy in it, but by the crinkles about her eyes Javert thinks she is laughing at him.

"Attend your duties," he growls.

Now she laughs openly but does as she is told, skirts rustling as she hurries after her patient.  
There is nothing now to do but wait. Javert rights the fallen chair and settles out of the way. Even allows himself to slump and rub at his wrists where the ropes have bitten deep.

A patient man, Javert. To be still, to be silent...they were arts he'd learned young, in the days when to go unnoticed meant survival. He'd first found the stars then, had taken to counting them to distract his mind while his body crouched small in the dark.

But now patience proves elusive. Javert rises. Paces. Settles again into his chair. Rises again with a muttered curse.

And so it goes for a time. More men are brought in, until the wounded lie in rows upon the floor. One by one the barricades have fallen, but the rebels have taken their full measure of blood, an impressive feat for men armed with ancient muskets and sodden powder.

The space within which Javert paces has grown tighter. He is hemmed in by men who bleed and moan, but still he turns on his heel.

Only to pull up short when he finds himself confronted by an unfamiliar nurse. She stands solidly in his path, her arms crossed over her ample bosom, her round cheeks beaded with sweat.

She looks him over. Frowns, and clucks her tongue.

"Come along then," she says, and when she turns he follows along behind like a dutiful dog.

Javert holds steady a gutshot soldier while the nurse administers an injection that will do but little. Assists in bandaging a man's thigh where a musket ball has smashed through flesh and bone alike, a temporary measure until a doctor finds time to cut away the ruined limb.

He wipes vomit from a man's chest. Fetches and carries. Moves the dead to make way for the living.

So the long hours pass, and Javert is grateful.

* * *

Gavroche survives the night.

It is a good sign, the doctor says, but no cause for celebration. The bullet shattered the blade of the shoulder, and if not for fear of Javert's wrath the man would have taken the arm. As it stands, he makes no promises.

Nothing will be sure until Gavroche wakes.

"If," Javert says. It is nothing so crude as a superstition, but he finds thin comfort in naming the worst.

Still the doctor admits the boy is stronger than expected. Javert snorts at this, for what is the street but a proving ground? That Gavroche has reached his tender age is proof enough of a will the coddled doctor cannot guess at.

With the boy deep in drugged slumber Javert feels safe to approach the bed. Gavroche is paler yet, and Javert had not guessed such a thing could be. The nurse dips cloth in water and washes the blood from the boy's cheeks, and for this Javert thanks her with a nod.

Javert has thought much on the possibility of the boy's death. Where he would bury the lad, the words to be craved on the headstone.

Only now does Javert come to wonder what his plan will be if Gavroche should **live**.

Return him to the very streets that weaned the boy so roughly? Certainly no orphanage...Gavroche would fly the very day he healed enough to gain his feet. An apprenticeship perhaps, if only Javert knew someone trustworthy for the task.

Sentiment. This is the very reason Javert prefers the sharp edge of the law, which cuts so neatly between what is right and what is wrong. But this...this cuts both ways, and Javert has been bled dry.

Perhaps better if the boy had been allowed to remain in the arms of his friends. Death is not so unkind a thing. Perhaps better if the boy never grew to be a man, for it is life that is unkind, life that scours away the best of a soul. Gavroche's brave smile, his bright eyes...

He will lose them, should he live. Little by little, and surely much too soon.

Javert shakes away his guilt, his regret. He cannot well return the boy to the students now. If he has inflicted harm on Gavroche in saving him, then it is upon Javert's shoulders to mend the damage best he can.

He does not mean to leave this rescue half-done.


	7. Chapter 7

Javert is advised it will be some time yet before Gavroche wakes. Likely days, for that small, battered body is at the end of its strength.

"If," Javert again insists. Savage enough in it for the doctor to raise a placating hand, as if Javert were a mad beast to be tamed.

But he has heard how the boy's heart faltered twice in the course of the long surgery. Indeed the doctor had fair glowed with pride as he told the tale. Most others would have given up, turned aside, but not he...he had been valiant, nay, heroic in his efforts to drag home a soul in flight. Efforts he had trust would be rewarded, for he knew Javert to be a harsh man but just.

No miracle, only that curious combination of terror and greed that made warriors of the meek and braggarts of the humble.

No miracle, and perchance its very opposite.

An inmate strangled by his cellmate. A troublesome man, and if the guards came too late to be of much good there was no proof of it. Javert had not witnessed the altercation, only its aftermath. A week the man slept, and when he woke...

A husk, like the shell of a cicada upon a branch, clinging still despite the void within.

Not Gavroche. Never Gavroche. If it came to it, Javert would send the lad on himself.

"If," he says, a whisper. It is nothing so crude as a superstition.

It is a promise.

* * *

Javert seeks out Esme, the stout nurse on whom he has come to depend. She looks askew at him and shakes her head.

"No." Her tone is chiding. Disappointed, and Javert finds his shoulders hunch, as if he were a schoolboy scolded after a scuffle in the street. "You're done in, Monsieur, and any fool can see it. Sit with your boy."

Javert does not correct her. Only waits at attention, and for all her formidable and surprising strength Esme soon crumbles. With an uncouth curse she throws up her hands.

Then does Javert a great mercy and puts him to use.

And if he is careful to keep Gavroche's bed always within sight, Esme is kind enough to make no mention.

Word comes while Javert holds a cup to the lips of a man whose cheek has been slit wide. The wound is cruel, caused by nothing so sharp as a blade, and the soldier cannot help but slobber red.

An officer throws wide the hospital doors and staggers inside. A playful breeze chases at his heels, carrying with it the faint fragrance of gunpowder and honey.

The man's face is waxen, the once well-groomed mustache twisted into a snarl by nervous fingers, but Javert recognizes the soldier he stumbled upon near the alley. The one who had been quick to raise his gun, and quicker still to call for a coach after seeing the burden Javert carried.

"Listen!"

The shout is weak, the man's voice but a tired rasp. Still it is enough to bring a waiting silence, save for those who suffer too deeply to hold back their cries.

"It is done."

The last barricade has fallen.

One would think such news would be met with a cheer. The majority of the men lying ruined in the beds still wear the tattered remains of their uniforms. This is their victory, reparation for the blood they have shed, the friends they have lost.

Instead a long, low sigh sweeps the room.

A tidal rush of soft regret, and when its echo fades the prayers begin. They overlap and mingle, until from many voices comes one plea.

_Bring them home, Lord. _

And so in death, the rebellion has triumphed. They will not be dismissed. Will not be forgotten, not when their very enemies mourn their passing.

It is in the air, a tension like the coming of a storm. In the tears of the nurses, the sorrow of the soldiers tasked with cutting down their fellows.

Today has come the rain.

But later...

The lightning.

The prayer dwindles. Fades, and Javert bows his head.

"Amen." He speaks in chorus with his humbled nation, and thinks Enjolras would laugh to see it. "Amen, and Godspeed.'


End file.
